Lettuce

Ingredients

• lettuce
• hard-boiled eggs
• oil

Method

Break each leaf from the head of lettuce and wash individually under cold running water, rubbing gently between your fingers to dislodge grit trapped in the folds. This is not negotiable — sand between the teeth ruins the dish. Spin the leaves dry or pat them with a clean cloth; standing water will dilute the oil and weaken whatever dressing you apply.

Submerge the dried leaves in a bowl of ice-cold water with a handful of salt for 10–15 minutes. This salad technique works through osmosis — the ice and salt draw water into the cell walls, making the leaf tissue crisp and turgid rather than limp. You want leaves that snap when you bite them, not ones that collapse into mush. Remove them from the water, spin them dry again, and hold them at room temperature until service. Chill them too far ahead and condensation will wet them down; too warm and they'll begin to wilt.

Hard-boil your eggs by bringing them to a rolling boil in salted water, then removing the pan from the heat and covering it. Leave them for 10 minutes, then shock them in ice-cold water. Peel whilst still warm — the membrane under the shell releases cleanly when the temperature gradient is sharp. Cut each egg in half lengthways so the yolk sits visible in the white, then slice each half into two or three thick wedges. This presentation is deliberate: the large cut surfaces showcase the colour of the yolk and catch the oil better than thin slices do.

Arrange whole lettuce leaves on a cold plate — don't dress them in the kitchen. Set the egg wedges alongside, then pour your best oil (a neutral groundnut or a grassy olive, depending on your preference) into a small bowl and pass it to the table with salt and pepper. The knife-skills here are minimal, but the principle is clear: each diner tears the leaves as they eat, dips them or the egg into the oil, seasons to their taste, and builds the salad leaf by leaf. This is not laziness; it's control — the leaves stay crisp because they're assembled moments before eating, and each person gets exactly the texture and salt they want. The White House understood that a salad collapses the moment it's dressed; this method respects that fact.